Six Nations food bank says its seeing middle class and working families for 1st time, as costs go up

At the Six Nations Community Food Bank one wintry afternoon, Mary Monturetakes stacks of a dozen eggs, and divides them in half.

She once gave families a whole dozen but some weeks now, shehas to split them as a wayto make food donations stretchto accommodate theincrease she has seen in recent yearsin theuse of the food bank.

Monture said on average, the food bank serves more than 1,700 community members. She saw around 850 visitors in the month of February, or a few hundred per week.

Compare that to the 40 to 60 people the food bank was serving per week before COVID-19 and economic strain increased needs among families.

"On a weekly basis,we get eggs and milk donated we get a minimumamount so what we've had to do is previously we could give each client onedozen eggs but with the increase in people now we are at half a dozen per client," she told CBC Hamilton during a visit over the winter. "Milk, we used to give out a bag of 3 litres now we've had to divvy that and spread it farther."

The food bank is among many organizationsacross Canada seeing an increase in food insecurity.

A report released earlier this yearbySecond Harvest,a national service that rescues food that might otherwise end up in landfills, said food banks and other programs wereexpectingto serve60 per cent more people per month in 2023 than last year. The forecast came after a year that already saw a124 per cent increase in people usingnon-profit food services.

In Six Nations, thefood bank is currently in need ofcanned soups andpasta sauces.Monetary donations help evenmore, Monture said, because they cangeta better deal with their wholesaler.

Monture saidshe's hoping to hold a few fundraisersin near future to help. A euchre tournament is set for April 29 at Six Nations Community Hall, with all proceeds going to the food bank.

"It is incredibly difficult with ever increasing need due to inflation, unforeseen job loss due to layoffs," Monture said.

Monture said though some people want to help with food drives, the bank can get so much expired food that some of it has to be thrown out.

She cautions that if ever doing a food drive, be sure to sort through any goods before bringing them to the food bank to makethat nothing is expired and all food can go to families in need.

Food bank seeing more working families

Couldthe need increase in future? Monture said she "shudders" to think about it.

"[The price of] food has not gone down,gas has not gone down and wages have not gone up. We have people coming who are working people but they are having tospread their dollarsfurther too, with the rent, food,gas and raising a family and so on. They are are coming to the food bank too, whereas we didn't see those people before," she said.

Those new clients include those from middle-income households with "nine-to-five" jobs, she said people that can't keep up with inflation or who have recently lost their jobs.

That's in line with what other organizations are seeing nationally.

"What we found was even shocking for us. It's bad everywhere," Lori Nikkel, CEO of Second Harvest, said in January with the release of the organization's report, whichincluded surveyresponses from 1,300 non-profit organizations.

Nikkelechoed Monture, sayingit isn't just the unemployed whoare showing up at food banks to make ends meet."Alot of people that are accessing food supports have jobs," she said.

Monture saidthe food bank has seen their own food costs go up, and the serviceruns purely on donations. Shehopes to seeawareness of the food bank increase, as it still needs a lot of help, she said.